Sunday, February 11, 2007

At the end of week 4, I find myself confused... no surprise!I have a clear picture of Alado and Elluminate environments.I sort of know what DiscoverE does.

I have a Springdoo account and thought I had embedded two communicators on this blog, Hala has tried to post comments with no success; when signing in I could not put my phone number, I was asked to type it in a specific format and I could not discover which format they want. I must have embedded it wrong. I need to find out how to make it work. Anyhow, using Springdoo I could send voice messages to Moira and discover that even when I do not have a video device I can send video messages, the screen shows my picture. :-)

I also have an account at Evoca, but I have not been able to make a recording. I wanted to send a message to Moira and found out I need to be accepted first as member of her baw07 group. I also discovered that in order to sent voice messages with Evoca I have to know the ID of the recipient, the email address is not enough.

I registered also at MyChingo, it requires the installation of Adobe Flash Player. Being registered enabled me to leave a message at the Baw07 voice forum. :-)

I did not got around to explore Gabmail and Handybits.Somehow, I understood that to view the clock links sent to the group I have to register at YouTube. For a few minutes I was with Moira, Chrissan and Sundar at Dimdim; it was encouraging to experience that to explore new tools and learn how to be a moderator in every environment is the way to go and follow.Without a sound card my recordings have a background sound that could be annoying, that fact has stopped me a bit. I do not know how will I get it.I will have to leave the explorations this environments for later, otherwise I will not catch up with week 5.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

I had written up to point 5 of my last entrance and the power went off!I was sad because I thought "Everything I typed is lost!"Now... I have to re-type! And remember to save, save, save

Yesterday I logged in in a cyber, I wanted to be at the conference in DiscoverE.As I had learned that for live events timing is critical I went there 45 minutes in advance. It is a place I know well, I like the owners and the attendant. I know they do not have mics so I though that I would just have to adjust the audio, install the program and presto! Wrong assumption!I logged in to our BaW07 Wiki Page to follow Moira's links and get there, but the page could not be displayed! So I went to another computer with same results, then I clicked all the links that Moira points out and none of those pages could be opened.So I decided to open Yahoo Messenger to let them know I was not going to make it. As I opened my Yahoo Mailjust for Webheads, I had never opened my account in another computer. Time was running short so I hurriedly opened the program... Storm!The program started to send messages to all my contacts to allow me to be part of their list and started opening windows for me to accept my contacts. I clicked yes to all the windows without even looking who I was accepting in my list and hoping that everyone was a Baw07 participant.I waited for the program to finish and contacted the group to let them know I was not going to join. Retyping now I do not remember who sent told the group, I will check the recording.The rest is history.

What did I learn?That I must remember to save.That not every computer can have access to the sites we are working.That I need to learn to customize my Yahoo Messenger list.That I need to learn more about Yahoo features to feel comfortable using it.That I am a color person and that from the color of the words I sort things. Examples:Green = sites visitedBlue = item to be placed at side bar

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

I need to reorganize my frame of mind.That sounds like an objective, therefore I would like to have an objective "place" (tag, or entrance or checklist or whatever it is called on e-learning) inside this page. Another objective that pups up is learn the proper name for "place".

I have two worlds in live in now, the internet one and the real one; it makes more sense now the term "SecondLife"; when I heard it the first time I though they were pulling my leg and ended up to be a site and I already have there a second identity called "mmvcentro Jewell". I would be nice to have a links place to get to the sites I have created directly from my blog.

This is like a diary, I like diaries... I have kept them for a long, long time. The difference here is that this is not private, so I have to be careful of what I write and check the spelling because I am publishing. Wow! I am publishing! I always wanted to write a book on my adventures, this can end like the outline of a chapter of the book. The spelling is not problem, I just found out, right this minute, that there is a spelling checker (is it the right term?) built inside this template. I would have love to have one of this when I was writing my MSc. Thesis. Funny, the spelling checker does not recognize MSc., let's see if it recognizes PhD. Wow! PhD is more well known than MSc. I wonder if I can add words to the spelling checker?.... I will ask and find out, thats reassuring... in real life sometimes there is no one to ask with the certainty that your question will be answered. I also need a place to post my questions.

Ups!!! The music stopped... I would like to have my favorite songs being played while I am in my blog outside my house, could that be done?

Now... What have I found out about the tools I am learning???...1.- I found out that Mozilla is a navegator like EI, that works better with java. Though... at Evoca it may be better to use IE. It's confusing. Is this last assumption right?2.- That Elluminate is a powerfull EFL/ESL environment, like a Three Ring Circus. Where you have to focus the attention of your students to listening, reading or handling the witheboard.For students it is great! I had tons of fun participating, as voice moderator I had to describe what I saw happening in the whitheboard... while doing it I was speaking in my normal tone of voice, I was not concerned with my pronunciation so what others heard it is how I speak English in a friendly environment. I would like to go back and listen to myself to observe me and see my opportunity areas in pronunciation, I learned English as Second Language in 1986 and have not been back to England again... a hard test for my teachers! I will be able to evaluate my pronunciation abilities... exciting!!!3.- That I have to know more about HTLMcode to post my pages where I want. José Antonio Da Silva provided a path to follow that I have not tyed out yet. I would like to have a place here to post the hints given to me.4.- That in order to access this page I have to login first to Blogger and then login to my page.The instructions given to enter were confusing for me. It says "enter with your google account" but if I type "mmvcentro@google.com" I cannot do it. In order to have a blog page at blogger you have to get a google e-mail address so I thought that was my google account but I know now that what they want as google account is my e-mail address "mmvcentro@yahoo.com"5.- That I need a sound board, or whatever is named, to place into my PC. My recording at Motime has a background sound. My husband and I did many trials before recording, I guess that's why my voice sounds as if I am reading but I was tired of doing the recording. We recorded without mic and the sound was still there, so the headphones are fine, the sound comes from inside the PC. I would like to ask Jonathan to suggest me a sound board, I know that during Elluminate session he had advanced controls and could moderate the voice of the participants but when I use Skype with peers neither of us has the knowledge, ability neither gadgets to do so. It must be annoying to listen to me. I will check that background sound at the recording of the session.